Tagged: Five Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Brian has tagged me to post five things you didn’t know about me. I had a feeling he’d pick me next.

I don’t much mind doing it, the trick is just going to be coming up with five things you’d give two craps and a stroke about. Most things I keep to myself for a reason, and the rest have probably come up at some point or another in the several years I’ve been keeping this blog.

Here goes nothing:

1) I have a phobia of heights. I get bad vertigo, and even feel it in certain shots during movies at the theater. I can climb a ladder, but don’t ask me to get on the roof. And if I make it on to the roof, it’s going to be ten times harder to get back on the ladder.

2) I used to have a nasty temper. Close friends and family will not be surprised by this. Others, who often call me a nice guy, will be. I’ve smashed a Jeep windshield with my fist, have punched holes in a door and a wall, nearly broke a friend’s nose, and my temper once cost me a job (one I probably should have quit long before that point). I’ve since mellowed. A lot.

3) I lived in a trailer through most of the nineties. My wife moved in with me when we got married. When the wind made the sheet metal roof warp and crackle, I’d go “Auntie Em! Auntie Em!” My wife was not amused.

4) My grandmother entered my name in a drawing when I was four and won me a trip to Disney World. The only part of that trip I remember was walking between some of the attractions with one of those animal-headed grabber things — a long stick with a trigger on one end and the head on the other. I used it to pinch a woman’s ass and nearly got my grandmother in trouble. I can still remember that ass, but somewhere along the line I evolved into a boob man.

5) I got kicked in the head in the mosh pit at a Bad Religion show. A guy bigger than me decided to go body surfing, and his boot heel left a near-perfect impression on my forehead. It soon grew into an egg-sized lump which I tried to soothe with a cup of beer. I’m sure I had a concussion, and my headache and neck pain lasted for three days. Like an idiot, I still went to work. Nothing says “professional” like a guy in a shirt and tie with an ugly black and blue knot an inch or so above his left eye.

And there you have it.

Hey, Weston Ochse: tag! You’re it, buddy!